


The Innocents - Book III - 'The Way of The Shepherd'

by malfunkshon



Category: Hanson (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Male Slash, RPF, Religious Cults, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 03:42:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16508732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malfunkshon/pseuds/malfunkshon
Summary: The third and final part of The Innocents trilogy, 'The Way of the Shepherd' is actually a prequel telling the story of Isaac, Taylor and Zac's life from their arrival at the Compound as children, up until their escape. Although this part takes place in a time prior to the events described in Book I and II, I would recommend reading I and II first, as the story assumes that the reader is already familiar with some of the events background.





	1. Story of Isaac

**Author's Note:**

> POV: Isaac
> 
> Word Count: 2,732
> 
> DISCLAIMER: this is a work of fiction and the author is not profiting in any way from its distribution.

It had been a long journey in the kind of heat I’d never experienced, and my skin was red hot and burning from hours of having the sun beating mercilessly on me through the car window. My left arm was red, my left leg was red, the whole left hand side of my face was red, as if someone had drawn a line from the top of my head, along the bridge of my nose, right down my chin, dividing it in half and colouring in one side. Taylor had fared a bit better on the other side of the car, his face flushed pink, with a scattering of freckles that had not been there the night before. As for Zac, we’d shielded him from the worst, and he had slept through the whole journey curled up between Taylor and me, covered in a white sheet, a white bucket hat to protect his head.

The drive had felt like forever. It was dusk when we finally pulled into Sagebrush Park Village, and there didn’t seem to be anyone around. In the approaching darkness, the place looked deserted and austere - not like the dream town our mother had promised us. To this day, I remember hoping that maybe there’d been a mistake: maybe that wasn’t it, it was just a pit-stop, somewhere to spend the night. I looked at my mother, searching her face for reassurance, but her eyes were intent on scanning our drab surroundings.

“Mom, is this really the village? It all looks kinda closed down…where are the children, you said there’d be other children-” I rained questions on her until she told me to be quiet and that’s when, as if on cue, Zac woke up and began to cry uncontrollably. My mother turned to face us from the passenger seat and glared at me, giving me a clear but unspoken order to get my youngest brother to calm down, or else.

“The best thing to do is to ignore them, Olivia. They’re just begging for attention and if you give in to them… they’ll never learn to control themselves. But you’ll see when they learn to filter.” My mother’s friend Theresa had said, without taking her eyes off the narrow road that was taking us to our new home on the residential side of Sagebrush Park Village.

I had no idea of what Theresa had meant by _filtering_ , but then again, not much of her conversations with my mother made sense to me. It was like she spoke in a different language, with big, weird sounding words I couldn’t understand, and even mother sometimes would ask her to explain - something that Theresa seemed only too happy to do. At the commune, the two of them would talk and talk all through the night, sitting up on bean bags as my brothers and I slept on a double mattress on the floor on the opposite side of the room. We had only been there a few weeks when she had moved in, but it had not taken Theresa very long before she began to show a keen interest in my mother, treating her as she was somewhat different from the other residents, special. Theresa was older, and from what we’d been told, she was some kind of teacher, sent by the group that ran that commune and others like it, to talk about a whole new way of life. Soon, Theresa was spending most of her time with my mother and often acted as if she resented me and my brothers - as if we were a nuisance. I noticed that mother had started to apologise for us, ordering us to be quiet whenever Theresa was around, reprimanding me if Taylor and Zac were misbehaving. It all felt terribly unfair to me: why was it my fault if my brothers did something wrong? But if I tried to argue, mother would say that she had entrusted me with the task and that it was my job, and did I really want to disappoint her? Of course I didn’t. I soon learned to accept my job and its responsibilities, and that was how, without realising, I took my first steps toward adulthood.

It wasn’t long after Theresa’s arrival, that our mother announced that we would be moving.

“Again?” I’d asked. We had lived in three different communes since leaving the trailer park and to me, none of the changes had been an improvement.

“Yes, Isaac, _again”_ she said. “We’re going to a new place, a very different place from here. It’s a model village, created for people just like us. We should count ourselves lucky! We are the privileged ones, you know? Only selected people are invited to live there. They have everything we’ll need there - schools,  playing fields, just think - we’ll get our own house there,” her eyes lit up as she described our future home. “You know, everybody gets along at the village. You can walk outside at night because it’s safe, there is no crime there. And I will take some courses like Theresa, and then I’ll be able to help other people, just like she is helping me now. Isn’t it wonderful, Isaac? Aren’t you excited?”

“Will there be other kids?” I asked cautiously. At the commune, the only other kids were two sisters in their early teens. They were not interested in playing with me, let alone with Taylor and Zac, who, at 5 and 3 respectively, were practically still babies.

“Of course there will be other kids, Isaac. There will be families with children, you and your brothers will be able to do sports, arts, social activities…” my mother’s voice was bursting with enthusiasm. “We’re going to start afresh there, you’ll see. Everything is going to be okay from now on.”

“But are you not going to miss Theresa?” I asked, sensing, however, that I already knew the answer.

“Oh Isaac, sweetie.” my mother responded with a short laugh. “You’re such a sensitive little man, worrying about your mama. Don’t worry, baby. Theresa is coming with us.”

\-- -- 

“This is it. Block 18, you’re in apartment A. It will have everything you need for you and the kids tonight.” Theresa said, stopping the car outside a low, anonymous housing block. “We’ll go to the Main Hall for your registration first thing tomorrow morning, to get you set up with everything else. Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day, Olivia, so you need get some rest.”

I peered out of the car window, surveying the long rows of identical looking housing blocks flanking either sides of the dirt track that lead into the residential area. As the Sagebrush Park Village had no crime, I thought I’d see kids playing outside late into the evening, but the there was nobody around. The village looked dead.

My mother stepped out of the car and gazed up at our new home, a flicker of concern flitting across her face.

“Are you not staying with us, Tree?” she said, using the nickname Theresa went by, and which I found incredibly stupid. How could anyone call themselves ‘tree’?

“Oh no, I’m sorry - I forgot to tell you,” Theresa turned away from my mother as she walked around the car and popped the trunk open. “There’s been a last minute change of plan. You see, my old apartment is free again. So there’s no point in being all crammed together when you can have your own place for you and the kids.”

 _Theresa wouldn’t be moving in with us!_ Heartened by the unexpected good news, I opened the car door and jumped out. We would have our mother all to ourselves again, at last. And tomorrow I’d meet the other kids and finally my brothers and I would have some friends.

My memories of those first days at the Compound are sketchy, but I remember our first night in our new home as if it was yesterday. The apartment was sparsely furnished, with bare white walls and windows that only opened at the top. The largest room served as kitchen, living room and bedroom, with the kitchen on one side and a refrigerator tucked into a corner.  A cream and brown checkered fold-out couch was laid against the side of the opposite wall, the scuffs and scratches of its wooden legs a reminder that we were not its first users. A table and four chairs filled the remaining space in the centre of the room and left just enough space for an adult of my mother’s slender frame to walk around it.

There was only one bedroom, with a double bed and no other furniture but a closet built into one side of the wall. A single bulb hung unadorned from the ceiling, casting a yellow light in a circular pattern that left the four corners of the room in the dark.

Theresa had left as soon as she’d brought in the last of our luggage, refusing my mother’s invitation to have some tea with us. I could tell that mother would have liked her friend to stay a while and keep her company in the new unfamiliar surroundings, but personally, I was glad to be finally rid of _‘Tree’_. I watched her drive off, then I went to put my arms around my mother and held her tightly.

“Mom, we can still make some tea and drink it without Theresa. It’s really nice here, don’t you think, Mom?”

My mother sighed, and gently but firmly, prised my arms from around her waist.

“I don’t feel like tea anymore. Let’s unpack, Isaac. I’m tired.”

It was the first time in my life when I felt distinctly inadequate, unable to give the person I loved the most the only thing she wanted right now: a cup of tea, some reassurance, a chat between grown-ups. Try as I might, I could not compete: I was only eight years old.

We hardly saw Theresa in the days that followed, which I found strange because up until that point, she had followed us like a shadow. I loved that we had our mother back to ourselves but I knew she had probably expected to be spending a lot of time with Theresa, going to their courses and meetings, cooking together like they did back at the commune. Now there was no time for any of that: we spent the first days in registrations, inductions, assessments - everything involved mother filling in more forms and answering a million strange questions, mostly about our family.

“Are you in touch with your parents?”

When she said no, they would rephrase the question.

“Are the children in touch with their grandparents?”

Again, mother said we weren’t - we’d had no contact with our grandparents, ever. My mother never talked about her parents, and we weren’t allowed to ask.

The questions would then turn to our father, and our father’s parents. Time and time again, mother would say that no, there were no paternal grandparents. No, we didn’t have a father.

“Mom, that’s not true.” I corrected her during one of those early assessments.

My mother’s eyes had taken on a glint of steel.

“ _Isaac._ ”

Her tone had allowed no arguing back and I looked down, mortified, as I listened to my mother explain how, to all intents and purposes, we didn’t _really_ have a father and she had no intention of finding his whereabouts ever again, let alone connect with his family.

But _we had_ a father. I knew my mother was angry with him, for reasons she’d said I was too young to understand, but to me it was unfair to say that he didn’t exist at all. We had not seen him for a long time, but I remembered him from when he used to come and see us at the trailer park. He’d bring us something every time - presents, toys, candy. Sometimes he’d turn up with a big paper bag full of food like burgers and fries and chocolate milkshakes from a nearby Denny’s restaurant. That was always a special occasion because our mother never took us there. After our father stopped visiting, we wouldn’t have Denny’s again for a very long time.

There were supposed to be other children at Sagebrush Park Village, but they were nowhere to be seen. As we traipsed from one side of the village to the next, rushing to the next endless tedious appointment, I swept my gaze around any patch of grass searching for a hidden playground. Trailing behind my mother, I’d crane my neck to look behind every possible corner, listening out, hoping to hear the sound of children playing, or a ball bouncing against a wall. I’d seen a couple of kids, but they had been with adults and they’d quickly disappeared into one of the village’s identical-looking low whitewashed buildings. Mother said the village children were busy with school and homework, and that as soon as I’d be enrolled in school, I’d be busy too. I couldn’t wait.

I’d never been too school. My mother had taught me at home, with a series of books called _Secular Homeschooling for Your Family_. I’d done well initially, and it hadn’t taken me very long to learn how to read the simple words and sentences of my favourite illustrated book: a story about three little pigs and a big bad wolf. But over time our school schedule had become more erratic, and sometimes mother would say that she was too tired, and we’d do school tomorrow. Then tomorrow would come and something else would happen, or she’d run out of time, and often several days would pass between lessons. When we moved to the first commune, mother found a renewed interest in teaching me and for a while I started to make progress. But there were people around all the time, and often someone would come and talk to her during our lesson, or she’d be called to help with some chores. “I’ll be back in a minute, Isaac,” she’d say, and I’d sit and wait for what felt like forever, looking at the page in front of me, hopelessly trying to decode the mysterious cipher that filled it. More often than not, mother reappeared with bloodshot eyes and a dopey look, giggling as if everything was suddenly funny, even the fact that we’d missed school once again. Then it would be time to help with dinner, and instead of practising my reading, I’d be in the kitchen peeling potatoes, drying dishes and, as the adults I was supposed to be helping often complained, ‘getting in the way’.

On a couple of occasions, other residents, who claimed to be qualified to teach, offered to help with my schooling; it never lasted long. I felt it was all like a game to these people - a game which inevitably ceased to be  fun as they noticed how I struggled to learn, and then the lessons would stop. Once, I overheard people referring to me as ‘retarded’. When I asked my mother if I was retarded, she admitted that when she’d been my age she could read, write and a lot more, but that it wasn’t my fault if I was a bit slow, and that life experience was way more important than what the establishment expected me to know. I didn’t understand what the establishment was, and why it wanted me to know things that weren’t important in the first place, but for a while I tried to school myself, turning page after page of my Homeschooling course book, staring at it in the hope that my brain would somehow still manage to assimilate its contents but it was pointless. I quickly gave up trying.

By the time I was enrolled in school, all my early progress had gone to waste, and I could read “The Three Little Pigs”, but little else. I only knew how to write a few words, two of which I’d practiced especially before my first day at school, until I’d satisfied myself that I could do a good job of it. Page after page of my notebook was filled with the same two words, which the intensity of my effort had etched into the paper, almost carving it. But I was pleased with myself. I didn’t know much, but at least I could write my name: _Isaac Anderson._


	2. An Education

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV: Taylor
> 
> Word count:1,864
> 
> DISCLAIMER: this is a work of fiction and the author is not profiting in any way from its distribution.

**THE INNOCENTS BOOK III - The Way of The Shepherd**

Chapter 2 - _An Education_

Compared to the commune we’d just left, to me our new home was a huge improvement. We wouldn’t have to share a bathroom, cook and eat our meals with other people and above all, we’d have our mother all to ourselves again. It would be like our old trailer, but bigger. I remember walking into our new lodgings and thinking that it was the nicest place I’d ever seen.

With the exception of the first night,  when mother allowed us to sleep in her double bed, my brothers and I shared the fold-out couch and she had the bedroom, just like when we were back in the trailer. Back then, Zac slept by our side, in a small cot that had already served as my bed and Isaac’s. Now, my younger brother was big enough to sleep in the bed between the two of us. If we were scared at night, Isaac would tell us stories that he’d make up there and then and which were usually so long and rambling that we’d all be asleep before my brother could come up with an ending. 

Watching our mother pull out the couch for us became a bedtime ritual, a time for make-believe. If a couch could become a bed, then it could also become a boat, an airplane, or spaceship - anything we wanted. That battered fold-out bed became our game room in a place that, as we were soon to find out, didn’t encourage toys or games; later on, when we were expected to always act according to our training , the fold-out couch would become our safe haven, the one place where we could still talk, unfiltered and uncensored, all through the night, while mother slept in her bedroom with her door shut. 

At first, the Compound seemed huge.

Driving into the village through the main gates, the first thing I saw were some big imposing buildings, and if you looked to one side of them, a little set back and separated by an impossibly green garden area, you could make out a cluster of two storey houses that, I’d soon find out, looked very different from the accommodation that awaited us at the other end of the village. 

“Is that where we’re going to live?”

Theresa glanced at me through the rearview mirror.

“That’s the Council Quarter. That’s not where _we_ live.”

“What’s the Council?” I’d asked.

“It’s the group of people who run Sagebrush Park. A bit like a city Mayor’s office.”

“Like the President of the United States?”

“Yeah, that kind of thing. Only more important.” Theresa said, letting out a little laugh. “The work we do here is _way_ more important.” 

I didn’t see that side of the village again for a long time after that - there’d be no reason for us to stray that far, as everything we needed was right in the middle of the village and an easy walk from the residential blocks. As mother had told us, Sagebrush Park Village had a school - although residents called it the Children’s Block. It was the closest public building to the residential area, and mother said that soon we would be able to walk there on our own - although all those low rise white buildings looked identical to me, as if they’d come ready-made from a factory, and I worried about getting mixed up and ending up in the wrong place. 

I was excited about going to school, but also a little scared: I’d never set foot inside a classroom and I hadn’t met many other kids before. Mother said that Isaac and I would be put in different grades according to our age group,  and that it was a good thing, because we would be forced to make new friends. But the thought made me anxious: I’d never been separated from him. If something went wrong, Isaac was the older brother who always knew what to do; he would often even keep quiet if mother blamed him for something Zac or I had done. I couldn’t imagine being away from him for several hours a day and having to sit next to strangers. As for Zac, mother said that he would go to kindergarten, where he would have fun with other children, learn new things, play games and draw. Mother herself would be taking classes too and learn all the things Theresa already knew.

On the first day of school, the four of us walked to the school building together  - Zac holding my hand and Isaac’s, happy as he usually was, not knowing that we would soon have to go separate ways. I squeezed his hand as we got closer to the building, my heart suddenly racing.

Once inside, we were shown to a small office where a thin, tall woman asked mother to sign some more forms while we stood waiting.

“So these two are … how old again?” the woman looked at each of us in turn.

“Isaac is eight,” my mother said, pointing at him, “and that’s Taylor, he’s five. He’s quite precocious though, he knows the alphabet already and-”

“Good, he will go with the older one then.” - the woman cut my mother off. “Our kindergarten is for really young children. Like him.” She gestured at Zac.

“Yes, my friend had told me that he could start school earlier here, but shouldn’t he be in a different grade from Isaac-”

“We don’t have enough children to offer separate grades, Olivia. So we have two mixed age groups for now. It will be a good challenge for him anyway.”

“Oh.” Mother looked surprised. “But, I was told that the school was already established and-”

“As more families move into Sagebrush, we will expand our programme. Right now, one teacher teaches 5-10s and the other does the 11-16s. School is only going to be a small part of their education,” the woman’s eyes scanned the form, “…Olivia. It’s just a stepping stone towards their processing training. That is done in small groups, selected by age and ability. School is just to teach them how to read the coursework material.”

I glanced at Isaac, and I could see the relief on his face. They wouldn’t be splitting us up, and that’s all that mattered. 

“Is the kindergarten here too?” Mother asked. “I can’t hear any children’s voices.” 

“Children learn to be quiet here, Olivia. You’ll be amazed at the transformation.” The woman’s eyes suddenly looked bigger, as if she was seeing amazing things that were invisible to us. Mother gave a little laugh, a hint of disbelief flitting across her face for the briefest of moments. 

“Really? Wow, I hope the teacher is prepared for Zachary…! ”

The woman stared at my mother for a long second before turning her gaze to my younger brother. Zac inched closer to me. 

“We have developed our own methods, Olivia, based on our techniques. I understand you haven’t had any of our training, have you?”

“That’s right, I’m starting my processing course today.”

 “Good. You are all on the right path now. Let’s take the children to their classrooms, and then I’ll show you to the nursery.”

When we stood at the classroom door, I suddenly felt I was going to burst into tears. I didn’t want to embarrass my mother in front of that woman, so I tensed my face until it hurt so badly that physical pain took over from the upset.

“It’s okay, Tay.” Isaac said, squeezing my hand. “We’ll be all right.”

“Taylor, now, don’t upset your little brother.” My mother said in a low, quiet voice, picking Zac up in her arms, as his hand was still holding on to mine. As she prised his fingers away from mine, his face contorted into an expression of panic and he began to cry.

The woman’s eyes took on a glint of steel.

“You see Olivia, that’s exactly the kind of behaviour we want to eradicate here. No more crying.”

“Did you hear Zac? No more crying!” my mother said with a small laugh, but her voice was shaking. “I’ll see you both later. Be good. You’re going to love school.” 

She kissed us quickly on our heads and handed us over to our teacher, then trotted behind the woman again, Zac still wailing in her arms.

_No more crying._

_— —_

I don’t know what I’d been expecting school to be like. From what Mother had told us, I’d pictured big rooms full of kids of my age, reading, writing, drawing, with a smiling teacher always ready to help. I thought we’d be singing songs and make science experiments. Things turned out to be very different: our classroom was small, and there were only a few children. Our arrival was met with a great deal of curiosity, and for the rest of the day I was conscious of several pairs of eyes watching our every move. I didn’t yet know it, but over the months and years that would follow, I would, too, experience the same mixture of excitement and curiosity whenever a new kid would be brought into the classroom, a brief reconnection with the outside world, until the new arrival would learn that talking about ‘home’ meant detention and would soon learn to keep quiet.

At five, I was the youngest in class, but I already knew more than the six and seven year olds I had been told to sit next to. Before our move to Sagebrush Park,  I used to sit and watch while my mother homeschooled my older brother, learning what I could alongside him. I couldn’t understand why Isaac struggled so much: I had figured out the alphabet really quickly and could even write a few words: my name, my brothers’ and the names of a few animals. Mother’s supply of books was limited to what she could find at the local thrift store, so she would read us pretty much anything, whether it was meant for children or not, and simply censor anything that she deemed unsuitable for us.

‘Oh no. You’re too young for that.’ she’d say, stopping abruptly.

She’d skip a paragraph, or a whole page; sometimes, she’d stop reading that book to us altogether, so we’d never know how it ended. Those unfinished books were the main reason why I decided to learn to read as soon as possible.

One day, mother came back with a book that looked brand new: the spine was still rigid and the cover was smooth and clean, not like the dog-eared paperbacks that we were used to. It looked as if it had never been opened, let alone read. “It’s a biography,” mother had said, laying the volume on the table. I didn’t know what a biography was, but it sounded intriguing. I picked it up with extreme care, afraid of leaving finger prints all over it. I studied the pristine cover in awe: against the background of a hilly landscape, a man smiled benevolently looking down on a crowd. With some effort,  I deciphered the words on the cover, reading them aloud to myself over and over until I almost felt as if I’d read the entire book:

_“Horace K. Smith - The Way of the Shepherd”._

 


End file.
